Nothing is impossible in Havanna

 

My old pal from the glory days of us being anthropology students, all-time-beauty ↑Joanna Michna has done it again. After her ↵ethnological documentary movie on Colombia’s Balineros now there is another one by her to be broadcasted soon on German national television’s high-quality channel arte: ↑Mecániqueros—Nothing is impossible in Havanna. Havanna’s mecániqueros are young private entrepreneurs in the land of socialism in actual practice. They develope cranky, whimsical, sometimes seemingly bizarre business ideas like a restaurant at the living room at home, or light switches made of deodorant cans. Deftly they act in the hidden, walking the line on the brink to illegality, managing to stay on the safe side. The movie shows Ariél and his friends, the Tricksters in Castro’s realm. They live by mecánicas, ruses and subterfuges to dig things up which are deemed to not be available. Havanna’s Mecániqueros know each other—what one of them digs up maybe converted into cash or whatever by another one.
 

The movie’s ↑official website [in German] features more information, a ↑making of and the ↑complete script of the movie [in German | .pdf | 63KB].
 

The movie will be broadcasted on arte on Saturday, 12 November 2005, 21:35h, and rebroadcasted on 13 November, 14:50h and on 19. November, 11:15h.